


Unplanned Encounters

by satonawall



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 21:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6676894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn just meant to make sure that the woman across the coffee shop was okay and not being harangued by the sour-looking man.</p>
<p>It wasn't supposed to get so complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unplanned Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a fake-dating fic, but I accidentally wrote myself into a corner, so now it's just... Almost 4K of weirdly set-up romance.

Finn scrolled through Facebook on his phone, liking a post Poe had made about flying and looked up just in time to hear his name called at the desk to pick up his order.

He’d just got the coffee into his hands when a voice carried over from the other side of the shop, catching his attention.

“No, thank you.”

Taking a sip of his coffee, he watched as the woman who’d spoken – a brunette who held her chin up proudly – glared at the man the words probably had been addressed to.

He couldn’t hear what the man said, his voice quieter than hers, but her reply made something clear.

“No. When I said ‘thank you’, I actually meant ‘now leave me alone’.”

Finn looked around. There were a few people who were following the interaction, probably because even in a busy coffee shop, the voices carried, but no one looked like they were going to do anything. It was a common enough situation, he guessed.

But as he saw when he walked closer, the woman looked like she might murder the man if he didn’t let it go, and Finn would rather that not happen. She was clearly not the guilty party, it would be a miscarriage of justice to sentence her.

“Is there a problem?” he asked her as he walked up to the two of them.

She might not want his intervention, but if that was the case, _he_ could take a hint. It felt wrong to leave without offering her the possibility.

The woman’s eyes widened for a fleeting second, and then a huge and fake-looking smile broke out on her face.

“No, no, not at all, honey,” she said, throwing her arm around his waist. “I was just going to tell this man all about you.” She turned to the (now even more sourly-looking) man. “This is my boyfriend.”

It seemed Finn’s face (he thought it had to look flabbergasted, but that was perhaps only because that’s how he felt) didn’t reveal her lie. There was no reply, just a long glare at Finn and the woman until the man simply turned on his heels and stalked away to the back of the café.

“Let’s get out of here,” the woman said, and Finn let her guide him out of the coffee shop; it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask for explanations within the earshot of the sourly man.

She let him out onto the street, across it and into the park, stopping at the nearest empty bench.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I panicked. Thank you.”

Finn smiled at her. “Does that mean ‘now leave me alone’?”

The woman ducked her head, laughing into her scarf. She was smiling too when she looked up, her eyes warm on him.

“No,” she said. “It means ‘thank you’.”

“It’s nothing.” There was a moment of silence; he took a sip of his coffee. “You don’t have to tell me-“

“It’s the classic story.” She fiddled with the lid of her cup. “Boy meets girl, boy harasses girl for a date, girl almost punches boy in the face.”

“My first thought was homicide,” he said. “Didn’t want you to go to prison for it since he was obviously in the wrong.”

She laughed, the sound clear and bright and beautiful, and angled herself towards him on the bench. “And all you got for your troubles was me roping into playacting without so much as a word of warning.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Finn said. “No harm, no foul. Except to that guy’s ego, but he clearly deserved it.”

“Trust me, he did.” She smiled at him again. “I figure it’s only polite to introduce yourself to the person you’ve just forced into an impromptu coffee date. I’m Rey.”

“Finn.” He made a vague gesture with his coffee cup. “It feels wrong to say ‘nice to meet you’, considering the circumstances, but-“

She nodded. “‘Happy to make your acquaintance’ comes off marginally better.”

“It does.”

They sat in companionable silence drinking their coffees for some time until Finn glanced at his watch.

“I’m sorry, I have to go. I don’t think my boss would accept ‘impromptu fake coffee date’ as a valid reason to be late.”

Rey laughed. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he said as he checked he hadn’t forgotten anything on the bench. “Hopefully next time it’ll be under more pleasant circumstances.”

Rey took a sip of her coffee. “Hopefully.”

\---

Finn had never been the favourite of Lady Luck, so much so that when he stood in front of his building trying to fish his keys out of his pocket and heard the voice, he wasn’t even that surprised.

“Not getting lucky tonight, I see.”

There he was, the sourly man from the coffee shop, not quite within punching distance but still close.

His fingers brushed at the keys and he wasted no time pushing the right one into the lock. “As has been made clear to you already, that’s none of your business.”

The door opened and he stepped in quickly, but not quickly enough to prevent the sourly man from getting his foot in and slithering in behind Finn.

Finn raised an eyebrow. The man didn’t look very muscular, but Finn preferred to prevent fights rather than win them. “Are you following me?”

The man walked closer to him, stopping a few feet away from Finn. It seemed like he was going for a threatening position. Finn didn’t correct him about the impression it gave.

“I’ve seen you around,” the man said. “Never with Rey, though. A new relationship?”

Finn held his gaze, willing his face to give nothing away. “Again, none of your business.”

The man looked like he thought he saw his answer, anyway. He stood up straighter. “It will not last.”

Finn didn’t have to fake the sardonic smile. It probably wouldn’t, seeing that there was no relationship, but as an assumption it spoke volumes. Not necessarily volumes he didn’t know about the man already, but volumes nonetheless.

“None. Of. Your. Business,” he said, taking great pleasure in putting emphasis on every word.

The man glared at him for a moment and then pushed past him into the stairwell. A moment passed, and a door on the first floor was slammed very loudly.

Finn groaned.

Of _course_ the man would live in his building. Of course.

Lady Luck truly did not favour him.

\---

Poe laughed. On the phone, it came off more as a low-pitched series of noises that could have originated from a faulty radiator, or possibly a dying animal. But Finn knew Poe. He was laughing.

“Worst friend ever,” he said.

The low-pitched noise didn’t stop.

Finn sighed. “Going to hang up in three, two-“

“No, it’s just-“ Another bout of low-pitched noise, but this time Poe seemed to get it under control faster. “Only you would get yourself in a situation like this, Finn. Only you.”

“You would have done the same thing if you were there.”

“Probably. But I don’t live in the same building as you do, so I don’t live in the same building as that guy. Ergo, it wouldn’t have happened to me.”

Finn groaned. “Seriously going to hang up on you.”

“Bye, bye, hope you enjoy an eternity of unpleasant run-ins with your fake girlfriend’s creepy stalker!”

Finn did hung up on him. He was fairly sure Poe was still laughing.

\---

He did not sleep well, mind too heavy with the whole thing. The morning did not bring him any particular relief, just the resignation that there was really nothing he could do save for one thing: act exactly as he had so far with the man, if he persisted in his provocation. He didn’t know if Rey knew him beyond the coffee shop altercation, and if she did, Finn didn’t want to be the one to make things awkward for her if he ended up yelling in the man’s face that he’d met Rey exactly once for about ten minutes.

Finn wasn’t exactly an optimist, but he generally tried not to see the worst in everyone either. This time, that probed to be the best strategy; the man (whose post box said he was either Ren or Solo, it had both names and Finn definitely wasn’t going to waste energy on looking further into that) did glare at him every time they saw each other, and even once or twice made a loud comment obviously aimed at Finn, but they didn’t run into each other that often. Besides, it wasn’t like Ren-or-Solo was the most unpleasant tenant in the building; everyone knew the blonde guy from 1C essentially stalked the comings and goings of everyone and then left anonymous pointed notes on the notice board about _someone_ banging the door at 11 pm or taking a shower at four in the morning.

If some bitter white guy decided to hate him from afar, Finn really couldn’t care less.

\---

He’d got his coffee again, scanning for a table to drink it at. By some miracle, he’d managed to actually catch the earlier bus and had a good half an hour before he’d have to get to the office.

Finn did spot a table, but before he could make his way there through the maze of small tables and haphazardly positioned chairs, most of them being occupied by people, a voice caught his attention.

“Finn!”

He turned around and smiled at Rey, who was standing by a table where she’d obviously been sitting.

“I have the weirdest sense of déjà vu right now.”

“I’m definitely having a better day so far,” Rey said. “Hopefully you’re too.”

“I am.”

There was a short silence as Finn waited for Rey to say something. Perhaps she had simply thought to say hi, but Finn got the impression that their encounter was not entirely accidental and purposeless.

“Do you have some time to talk?” Rey asked. She gave him a lopsided smile. “Not trying to coerce you into another coffee date, promise.”

It was not the way he had intended to spend his leisurely morning, but the decision was easy anyway.

“Of course. We could take it to the park again?”

There would be less possible eavesdroppers there, and besides, a busy coffee shop had never been Finn’s ideal location for personal chats. Of course, he couldn’t know what exactly Rey wanted to talk about, but he thought he had a pretty good idea; there weren’t that many things he knew they shared.

The bench they’d sat on the first time they’d met was yet again free, and they sat down in silence. Rey played with her take-out cup for a moment, and Finn waited, letting her decide when to break the silence.

Finally, she looked up, her eyes searching Finn’s.

“I’m really sorry.” She bit her lip. “About dragging you into this whole mess with Kylo. I had no idea he lived in your building.”

“You couldn’t have known.” He gave Rey a small smile. “ _I_ didn’t know. He apparently did, but-”

Finn shrugged. He wasn’t going to bother considering things from Apparently-Kylo Ren-or-Solo’s perspective.

“You are quite memorable,” Rey said, but her expression turned serious very soon. “But still. He probably wasn’t bothering you every time he saw you before I- I’ll tell him. That you were just a very decent person trying to help me.”

“Will it create problems for you?” Finn asked. “I mean, you obviously know the guy from somewhere.”

The side of Rey’s mouth quirked up. “He’s my boss’s son.” Finn’s face must have betrayed something, since she hastened to add, “It’s not going to be a problem. Han will just laugh at it and probably tell all of his friends. It’ll be embarrassing, but- At least Kylo should stop harassing you.”

“How about you?” Finn asked. “I mean, sure, the guy is annoying, but aren’t you at all concerned about how he’ll react to you when he finds out?”

Rey’s smile turned a little devious. “I can bench press 80 kilograms. I think I’ll be fine.”

Finn couldn’t help glancing down at her arms. She was wearing a coat, of course, so obviously he couldn’t see anything, but just looking at her lean frame, he had no doubts she was telling the truth.

“Your boss won’t mind you kicking his son’s ass?”

He couldn’t help the note of concern.

“I might even get a raise. Han’s a complicated man.” Rey grinned at him. “It’s really sweet of you to worry, Finn, but you don’t need to. You’re officially fake-dumbed.”

Finn grinned back. None of his previous break-ups had put him in such a good mood. “Consider me fake-heartbroken. I’m going to have to call my friend to come over with some fake ice cream.”

“How about some fake dinner?” Rey asked. “I mean, I was only your fake girlfriend for a little over a week, but I _am_ responsible for your heartbreak so I should probably make amends for that.”

Finn swallowed the instinctual yes. He could see why she felt like she owed him something, but he just didn’t see it that way, and he definitely didn’t want her to feel obligated. “You don’t have to.”

“Maybe.” Rey smiled at him. “But I want to, if you do.”

He returned her smile. “In that case, some fake dinner sounds great.”

They swapped numbers and promised to work out the details later. It was only when Rey had excused herself on account of having to get back to work that Finn began to wonder if she’d ended a fake relationship and proposed a real date in the course of a single conversation.

It could just be a friendly dinner, he thought as he dumped his empty coffee cup into the rubbish, and that would be cool as well. But he could always hope. He’d find out soon enough anyway.

\---

Finn had been prepared for some reaction from Kylo Ren-or-Solo, but what he got was delightfully mild. The glare aimed at him when they passed each other in the stairwell was probably supposed to be victorious of the ‘you’re not sleeping with her either’ variety, but frankly it just looked humiliated that the whole thing had went down at all.

If it had been a competition, Finn would have counted himself as the winner.

As it wasn’t, he simply okayed Rey’s suggestion of meeting in a restaurant that was fairly close to his building and actually one of his favourites for those rare occasions when he actually ate out.

\---

He was the first to arrive, but Rey wasn’t far behind. She, it turned out, had also got off relatively easy in regards to admitting to not being Finn’s girlfriend.

“I could swear, he actually turned kind of green in the face.” Her laugh was contagious. “And I was definitely right about Han telling everyone. It’s been difficult to get him to talk about anything else.”

“That’s good,” Finn said. “Seems like everything turned out quite well.”

Rey smiled back. “More than quite well, I’d say.”

Finn wanted to latch onto those words and just ask, but there was a high potential for awkwardness for the rest of the meal if he did, and he wasn’t quite sure if that was a price he’d be willing to pay. Not yet, at least. He’d have plenty of time to bring it up during, say, dessert.

His silence must have seemed about as awkward as his potential question, though.

“Sorry,” Rey glanced down at the empty stretch of table in front of her and then raised her gaze at Finn again with a resolute air, “that was weird. It’s just that I’ve been meaning to ask... This definitely doesn’t have to be a date, I’m not going to do that mistake twice.”

She looked like she was going to say something else, but Finn took advantage of the short pause to put her at ease.

“I definitely wouldn’t mind if this was a date.”

Rey’s smile lit up her whole face. “Me neither.”

For a good long while, they just grinned at each other from their respective sides of the table. That was only interrupted by the arrival of their orders.

“I was going to bring it up, too,” Finn said as they were digging into their food. “I was just afraid that if I said something this early and you were just intending this to be a friendly outing, the rest of the meal would have been really awkward.”

He realised the implication just as Rey’s smile widened.

“That’s me,” Rey said cheerfully and popped a fry into her mouth. “Making things awkward with you since we met.”

“To be fair,” Finn took a gulp of water, “if you hadn’t, we probably wouldn’t be here right now, so maybe it all served some greater purpose.”

Rey’s foot brushed against his under the table and her smile was wide and happy. Finn was sure his own was the same.

Despite the less-than-regular beginning, most of their evening shaped up to be like any regular first proper date. It turned out Rey was a mechanic and worked at the local garage. She had a host of amusing stories about her grumpy boss Han, apparently a much more decent person than his son. Finn responded with his own tales of office antics and the questionable joys of low-level management. They barely realised the passage of time, the main course blurring into dessert and dessert into coffees they only got because neither one of them felt like leaving yet.

Eventually, though, the waiter’s friendly enquiries of whether they needed something acquired a little bit of an edge, and they thought it best to leave before causing any proper aggravation.

Rey had taken the bus on her way to the restaurant and, as it turned out, her bus stop was in the same direction as Finn’s building.

“I had a lot of fun tonight,” Rey said as they reached it. She smiled hopefully at Finn. “We could do it again sometime?”

“We definitely should.”

Finn just meant to step a little closer, maybe continue that line of discussion and actually agree on a time, but his hand ended up near Rey’s and she took it, and somehow it just felt like the only natural thing was to move even closer. She met him halfway, her hand gently squeezing his.

The kiss was short and sweet, close-mouthed and probably something out of a Disney film. It might have been followed by a decidedly different type of kiss had Rey’s bus turned a corner right then, necessitating the end of their date.

“I’ll call you tomorrow?” Finn said as Rey stepped in.

“Not if I call you first!” was her cheerful reply, and he laughed as he watched Rey find a seat and the bus leave the stop. As he started walking home, he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

_Does texting count?_

The reply only took a second to arrive.

_It wud if it was tmrw but its not :D_

\---

Calling each other the following day turned into another date, turned into another and then another, was explicitly acknowledged as dating, and prompted Finn to introduce Rey to Poe and Rey to introduce Finn to Han (grumpy; Finn was no longer surprised he found his son’s romantic setbacks amusing) and his wife Leia (absolutely lovely, yet Finn was sure getting on her bad side would- He didn’t intend to get on her bad side, he didn’t have to think about how unpleasant it would be).

They weren’t quite yet at that point where he could easily and comfortably bring up the fact that all his plans for the future had ever-so-slightly shifted to include Rey, but they definitely were at a point where he could be confident that if he did, she wouldn’t run for the hills in terror or break up with him. The ‘if’ was there only because it was possible Rey would initiate that conversation before him.

And they definitely were at a point where they’d have trouble getting up the stairs into Finn’s flat before things got too explicit for the hallway.

“Seriously?”

It was quite possible, Finn thought as he and Rey pulled apart to look at the intruder, that they’d never be at a point where the appearance of Kylo Rey-said-it’s-complicated-if-it’s-Ren-or-Solo-I-don’t-care wouldn’t be a complete turn-off.

He could live with that. In fact, all things considered, he preferred to keep it that way.

Kylo stared at them, and just out of defiance, Finn did not allow himself to feel embarrassed. It was a little juvenile to be caught in a public place having a heated make-out session that was obviously going somewhere further, but so was, well... Whatever Kylo was doing.

Rey’s hand moved down from his chest to grasp at Finn’s hand, and he looked away from Kylo and let Rey pull him up one more flight of stairs to Finn’s floor. The combined effects of the kissing and the interruption made him fumble a little with the keys, but soon enough they were inside his flat and the door was securely closed.

As soon as the lock clicked behind them, his eyes found Rey’s and their respective covers broke at the same time, laughter spilling out uncontrollably.

He didn’t know how long it lasted. Probably so long that it was impossible to ignore it downstairs.

Rey bit her lip, but one final giggle escaped anyway. “You should definitely move.”

“I definitely should.” He could only glance at Rey; anything else, and they’d both start laughing again. “But the rent here is fairly low. Probably because of the lousy neighbours.”

Rey’s hand found his. “My place has a low rent as well. It’d be even lower if we split it.”

Finn looked at her, no longer on the verge of laughing. She held his gaze, her face open and happy. Inviting. Definitely not running for the hills.

“Not your current place, though,” he said, barely realising he’d stepped closer. “I’m pretty sure the green shade of the ceiling is actually mould, and your neighbours are just as lousy.”

Besides, Mr Plutt had a habit of making very loud business phone calls at five in the morning. Rey might be able to sleep through them, but Finn knew his own limitations.

Rey’s nose scrunched a little like it did when she was particularly happy. “Fine. We should definitely move. In. Together. Somewhere far away from both Kylo and Mr Plutt.”

“That’s a great idea.” He just barely managed to get the words out of his mouth before their lips met, his hands settling on Rey’s waist and Rey’s arms finding their way around his neck.

“Was it just me, or did someone downstairs actually bang at their ceiling with a broomstick at some point?” he asked a good long while later, his head resting against Rey’s shoulder, Rey’s fingers idly drawing circles against his back under the covers.

“Mmm,” Rey said. “Could be. Doesn’t really matter, does it? You’re not going to have to put up with them for that much longer.”

Finn could do nothing but laugh. “True.”

It was a cheerful thought, and he held on to it as they both settled more comfortably for a well-deserved nap. All in all, things had worked out much better for him and Rey than they had for any bitter, sour people who might live downstairs.


End file.
